On the Edge : A Progress Report on Welfare to Work in Los Angeles

The loss of a welfare safety net for most adults for most of their lives makes the quality of jobs available to the working poor and their success in finding and keeping jobs increasingly important. The economic and civic life of the Los Angeles region will be shaped by connections that are made, or fail to be made, between the growing ranks of working poor and opportunities for steady, sustaining, productive employment.Welfare workers whose characteristics and earnings are analyzed in this report are individuals who participated in GAIN and were reported by program staff to have found jobs. They do not represent all of the participants in Los Angeles County's GAIN program (about half of whom did not find jobs) or the general population of families with children receiving welfare, many of whom were not referred into GAIN. Recipients whose outcomes are analyzed in this report represent the most successful half of GAIN participants. During the eight-year period covered by this data, GAIN went through three program phases: (1) a basic education program from 1990 to 1993, (2) a “work-first” model from 1993 to 1996 that focused on long-term welfare recipients and emphasized immediate job search activities rather than skill development, and (3) a continuation of work-first with an emphasis on new entrants to welfare from mid-1996 through 1997.GAIN has significantly increased employment rates among participants. However, in 1997, 65 percent of long-term GAIN workers (those whose first GAIN job was at least three years earlier) had earnings below the poverty threshold for just one person and 74 percent had earnings below the poverty threshold for their families. Most GAIN workers have low-paying jobs in low-wage industries. There is a shortage of jobs in the county that pay sustaining wages to workers with average levels of education. Education and the ability to speak English are the most significant factors associated with GAIN workers who had higher earnings